Source: Preservation of the Canaanite Creation Culture in Ife (Between Resistance and Expansion: Dimensions of Local Vitality in Africa) 2004 A.D.
Sources like this are important and should be used in conjunction with Dr. Dierk Lange’s other work which focuses on the physical migration of Assyrian refugees into West Africa. When this conjunction is done, one realizes that peoples from the Middle East like the Yoruba, Kanuri, Soninke, and Hausa peoples were simply interacting with their kin (Phoenicians were comprised of Israelites and Canaanites) in the northern regions of Africa whom they had long become disconnected with. In my opinion, the Assyrian refugee work that Dr. Lange puts fourth is the single most important link between the ancient near east (ANE) and Africa while works like the one this post focuses on support the fact that peoples could come from above or below the Sahara Desert.
Peoples like the Yoruba are not appropriating anything, this is their culture because they hail from the ancient near east. Assimilation and disconnect from the centrality of one’s culture has led to new developments in the Yoruba people.
and then